It's the hottest holiday of the year on Monday. The Fourth of July, so hot the wieners cook themselves, especially if your name is Anthony Weiner. So hot you'll make your own gravy sweatin' over the grill in your backyard. Meat and you sizzling till done, and you take shelter in a stomach or inside in air conditioning, if you're not a burger. Car and mattress sales popping up like roadside tents selling fireworks around the commonwealth. All in honor of the Declaration of Independence, not unlike what Mrs. Anthony Weiner might be declaring soon. It's all so American, but the Fourth of July I remember most was in Rome back in the day. Let me tell you about it, if you have a moment.

I was at a foreign Air Force Base on temporary duty with the 78th Tactical Fighter Squadron in Aviano, Italy and they let us off for the Fourth of July. So a friend and I hopped the first train we could find to Roma, as they call Rome, to see the sights.

We did the Coliseum, the Vatican and walked around the ancient city wide eyed. At one point I asked a horse for directions, as shown in the above photo. As luck would have it, the horse didn't speak English and I didn't speak horse, so it was a useless gesture on my part.

We ate pizza and drank wine, which was cheaper than Coke. The pizza was unlike any pie we had in America. It was cold, small and gummy. We could have had octopus, which was sold beside the pizza under a glass counter, but it had too many tentacles. It's just a rule I have about tentacled food, one tentacle is one too many. This was at a cheap cafe not a fancy trattoria.

Being young boys we ran into young girls. At least we kept running into girls till some of them finally talked to us. The old law of averages strikes again. But the one I ended up talking to was on her own touring Europe.

So I peeled off from the group like an F-4 fighter jet in a squadron bombing something on its own. She was a short blond named Ellen from Canada, so the only language barrier was when she said “Eh.” and aboot for about. Luckily I'm not linguistically challenged, so I translated her Canadian into American almost instantly. Hey, it's a gift.

I essentially abandoned my GI buddy in the best tradition of guys when they meet girls distancing themselves from their friends immediately, with no second thoughts about it. Even if it leaves your best friend alone in a foreign country where he doesn't speak the language and has no idea how to get home, because you have the train schedule in your pocket.

Ellen had a lovely singing voice and as we strolled along the steamy Roman streets in the hot July sun, she serenaded me as we held hands like long lost loves, instead of having only just met. We soon ran into some Americans who told us about or aboot a Fourth of July picnic outside the city, where pretty Canadians were allowed to attend.

So we walked then hitch hiked to this big ex-patriot estate that had hot dogs and burgers grilling over charcoal, bottles of Bud bobbing about in buckets of ice and, that night, fireworks streaking across the black Italian sky in explosions, spits and booms. We sat on the grass oohing and ahing, but not at the fireworks but at each other as we kissed and began a relationship that ended that night. As the old Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young song says “If you're not with the one you love, love the one you're with.”

One other thing that struck me was how American and patriotic I felt thousands of miles from home holding this gorgeous Canadian girl so tightly on a Roman hill celebrating America's Fourth of July in the midst of the hated Vietnam War, where over 58,000 Americans fought and died. Frankly, it was the most romantic Fourth of July I ever had and stands out like a pearl in a string of summers so shiny and translucent in my youth.

Related Stories

Featured Story

Get 'Today's Front Page' in your inbox

This newsletter is sent every morning at 6 a.m. and includes the morning's top stories, a full list of obituaries, links to comics and puzzles and the most recent news, sports and entertainment headlines.

optionalCheck here if you do not want to receive additional email offers and information.See our privacy policy

Thank you for signing up for 'Today's Front Page'

To view and subscribe to any of our other newsletters, please click here.